


Sickness of the Soul

by Bazylia_de_Grean



Series: Adra Bán [11]
Category: Pillars of Eternity
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-09-01 22:50:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16774507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bazylia_de_Grean/pseuds/Bazylia_de_Grean
Summary: What he did was stupid, but also inexcusable, and she has every right to throw him out of Caed Nua, onto the road back to Defiance Bay. And yet he is still in the keep, and Lady Eidis is at his side, clearly worried about him.“Forgive me,” he says quietly, willing her to understand. “I shouldn’t have... I should have respected your wish.”She shakes her head slowly. “I could have killed you.”





	Sickness of the Soul

**Author's Note:**

> (prompt 14: sick day)

Every time he looks at Lady Eidis, he recalls her elusive answer – and that brief vision he glimpsed the first time he stood before her. She often wears her braid pinned up over her forehead, but only once did he saw it gleam like a white adra crown. A familiar sight, though Adhán cannot remember where had he seen it, and no matter how hard he tries, the door to the past lives and their memories remain closed.

At first, he was going to respect his thaynu’s will and let the matter rest... But curiosity won, in the end. There are things his mentor taught him that Lady Eidis might not know about, Dunryd Row tricks he can attempt to use. She is powerful, but Islwyn is, too, and yet Adhán was able to get past his mental shield; his final exam as a Row agent ended with both him and his mentor getting sick, and suffering terrible headaches for over a week; Adhán - because he used too much soul energy, and Islwyn – because he put up all his defences and then had them broken.

He is going to be more careful with Lady Eidis, though. Because he does not want to hurt her, even that way – but also because he has a feeling she could accidentally kill him if she felt threatened. Had she given him an explanation, he would have accepted her refusal to answer – but he was left in the void, and he is not one of those that can forget questions or live on what-ifs.

Adhán chooses a calm afternoon, waits until they are left alone in the quiet of the library, and then touches his index and middle fingers to his temples. Usually, he can do without the physical aid of cipher signs, but he has no delusions – Lady Eidis is more powerful and more experienced, so he needs any advantage he can come up with. That, and surprise. It is not possible to see through the mental barriers of a strong cipher when one is expected.

In his mind, Adhán can see a wall which slowly turns into fog. He can recognize dim shapes behind the milky veil – a crowned woman with face hidden in shadow; his own face, but older, and... Suddenly the fog becomes a lake – a sea, an ocean – and he is drowning, gasping for air and gulping down water.

The last thing he sees – with his eyes, not his mind – is Lady Eidis’ face turned towards him, her expression distant and cold and haughty, a hurt ‘how dare you’ written clearly over her features. Her eyes are sharp like shattered adra.

He falls into the darkness, followed by her voice: “Don’t go where you are not welcome.”

* * *

A terrible headache is what wakes him. Adhán blinks and tries to open his eyes, but they burn and the world starts spinning, and he thinks better of it. His limbs feel heavy, and he feels uncomfortably hot – feverish. Ah. Same old mistakes.

“What you did was very foolish,” Lady Eidis’ voice speaks somewhere to his right.

“I am well aware of that.” Groaning softly, Adhán forces his eyes open.

The room is dim – thank gods – the fireplace and a few candles being the only sources of light. Eidis is sitting beside the bed, her shoulders straight, but there is more compassion than anger on her face.

Adhán sighs. What he did was stupid, but also inexcusable, and she has every right to throw him out of Caed Nua, onto the road back to Defiance Bay; he can imagine Islwyn’s wrath, like fire in a forge – scalding hot, but tempered and used precisely as its owner intends, far more frightening than raw fury or tempest-like rage typical for most Glanfathans. There are very few things in the world Adhán is afraid of, but even he is wary of his mentor’s anger.

And yet he is still in the keep, and Lady Eidis is at his side, clearly worried about him. He should not have attempted what he did. She deserves better.

He looks up at her, into her eyes – for anyone that can truly see, her eyes are two deep pools of sorrow.

“Forgive me,” he says quietly, willing her to understand. “I shouldn’t have... I should have respected your wish.”

She shakes her head slowly. “I could have killed you.” Her voice is soft, but there is reproach in her eyes, and real fear. The thought she could have harmed someone she is responsible for truly scares her.

“You wouldn’t have,” Adhán replies, with utmost confidence in her abilities.

“Probably not,” she agrees. “I knew it had to be you, because no one else was there. But had we been in the open, had I reacted more quickly...” She lets the unsaid words hang in the air between them, each letter heavy with dread.

He tries to sit up, but she immediately stops him, putting a hand on his shoulder.

“You should rest,” she reprimands sternly. But even when her tone is sharper, and even if her mind is Durgan steel, she is still soft, soothing like water and sunlight, and warm like burning candles.

“Last time I got a backlash like that was at the end of my apprenticeship to Islwyn,” he says, trying to lighten the mood. It is not an easy thing, making her laugh, but he likes a challenge.

“You’re more powerful than him,” Eidis replies; it is no compliment, just a straightforward assessment.

“He told me the same thing.” Adhán smiles. “And also that he was thirty years more experienced in being less powerful.”

She laughs. There is barely any sound, but both corners of her mouth curve up, and for a moment there is even a gleam of teeth.

“He showed me I still had a lot to learn. Just as you did today.”

“I hope you’ve learned your lesson this time...” she pauses and her smile fades, but not completely, “apprentice.”

“Learned it by heart, my lady.”

They fall silent, but it is easier now, the tension having mostly dissipated. Eidis glances away, caught and lost in thoughts, and he uses the chance to watch her freely, without making her uncomfortable.

In the golden glow cast across the room by the fire, her hair looks like flames. Adhán stares, speechless, because he recognizes her, because for a moment, she looks like the girl from his dreams, and suddenly he is certain. He had known her, in another life, when her hair had been like fire; it is white now, but her soul still burns just as brightly. He feels a stab of pain in his chest, and only then he notices he has been holding his breath.

“I... am sorry,” he speaks at last. “What I did was unforgivable.”

Something changes in her face as he speaks, but it is too brief for him to name it. And then he realizes that for a moment she was not looking at him but at that man from the past. And that those memories bring her pain.

“Had I been so terrible?” he asks quietly, trying to turn it into an ironic jest, but mostly failing. “Or had the world been so terrible to me?”

Eidis smiles at him. A soft, gentle smile, broken in such a way his soul gets caught on the edges. “Yes.” She reaches out and brushes a strand of damp hair out of his face. Her fingers are cool against his burning forehead. “Rest now. You have a fever.”

“A normal reaction after overexerting your mental powers,” he explains matter-of-factly, because while she is powerful, she has never received formal cipher training, and may not be familiar with the symptoms.

“I’ll tell Invar to bring you a potion.” She starts getting up, but Adhán catches her hand.

“Eidis, wait...” he breaks off as they both register he has just called her only by her name, not using any titles.

She hesitates, then leans over him slightly. Her eyes are sad and anguished, but her gaze is caring. Whoever she is looking at right now, him or that man he had been lifetimes ago, she cares for him more than for herself. It is not right. Adhán is not a devout follower of Woedica, and his concept of justice might be peculiar at times, but he knows it is not right, it is not how it should be.

“I know how you feel,” Eidis says softly, lightly curling her fingers around his. “I’ve been there. I know how it feels to look for answers and only find more questions.”

Adhán pricks up his ears. He knows the tale, of course, but it is appropriately heroic and very vague, and Eidis herself has never talked much of her first few years as a Watcher.

She gets up and perches on the edge of the bed, right beside him. So close he can feel the heat of her soul in his own.

“I have found my answers, and I still wish I hadn’t,” she explains quietly. “You know of Maerwald, don’t you? He wasn’t looking, he never asked, but the answers found him anyway and drove him mad.” A brief, mirthless smile, and she continues. “I am not mad, but I see pictures from the past. I hear voices.” She looks at him and strokes his temple, her fingers cool and soothing. “All I’m trying to say is... Sometimes it’s better not to search. To forget the questions.” Her hand withdraws. “I hoped you trusted me enough to accept my silence.”

Watching her face to gauge her reactions, he gently pulls on her hand, until it is resting right over his heart. He has never sworn allegiance to her, and officially he is still just a guest from the Dunryd Row, sent to observe and to learn... But he will serve her and would lay down his life for her, and he needs Lady Eidis to know that.

Her eyes tell him clearly that she knows. And that, for some reason, his loyalty hurts her even more.

“Whatever I had done, I am sorry.” It sounds so meaningless when spoken aloud, so worthless compared to the thought he really wishes to make it up to her. It is a weird notion, to actually feel something akin to guilt perhaps for the first time in his life.

Eidis laughs quietly; it is strained and bitter rather than merry, but she seems amused nonetheless. And yet her eyelids flutter as if she was blinking back tears.

“I had asked for it,” she says, and for some reason her voice seems very brittle. “I had always had the habit of asking all the wrong questions.” She looks down at him, and suddenly her smile is like sunlight on adra shards. “But you don’t have to,” she adds, touching his cheek; there is tenderness in her gestures and voice, and Adhán is not sure what to think of it. “It’s all in the past,” Eidis continues, her words and fingers weaving a spell, but once he comprehends what she is doing it is already too late – and he does not want her to stop, anyway. “Forget it. Just forget it.”

Her eyes are right above his... The sky at dusk. Eternity. He does not know the right questions, but all the answers are there, so close... And then it dawns on him that she had loved him once – that man he had been, that man he is in his dreams sometimes – she had loved him. And paid a terrible price for it. Still keeps paying.

“Had it been worth it?” he asks in a rough whisper.

Her soul is a candle, and there is nothing he wants more than to wrap himself up in her warmth and fall asleep.

“It is now,” she replies, smiling at him gently, and there it is, for just an instant – not happiness, but confidence, assurance that she had done the right thing – whatever that had been.

Eidis leans in and softly presses her lips to his forehead. Unlike her hands, her kiss is warm.

“Sleep now,” she breathes, pulling away.

As he falls into dreams, Adhán’s last conscious thought – bright and brief like lightning – is that in the morning, he will not remember any of this.

* * *

Eidis quietly closes the door behind her and leans against the wall heavily, biting her lip and shutting her eyes tightly. To hear him sincerely apologizing for all the wrong things... She would rather he did not say it, kept it in his thoughts, where it had still been plain for her to hear.

She lets out a deep, shaky sigh, curls her hands into fists for a moment, digging her nails into her palms until it hurts. Until the physical pain draws her away from what she feels in her soul.

And then she raises her hands and touches her index and middle fingers to her temples. She would have never become such a powerful cipher is she had not learned to command her own mind, too.

They will be better off – both of them – if neither remembers. He will recall that he tried to read her thoughts, he will wake up tomorrow in bed with a headache and a fever, and hopefully, it will teach him he should not try that again. And she – it will be a relief to forget how close he was to learning the truth, to never be tempted to imagine where that could have gone, had she allowed it.


End file.
